Key part of Canada's railway legacy nestled in rural New Brunswick

A former ticket agent's booth can be seen inside the historic McAdam railway station in western New Brunswick.

Photograph by: Melanie Patten
, The Canadian Press

MCADAM, N.B. - It's been said that the unmistakable sound of a steam locomotive's whistle can still be heard in this sleepy New Brunswick village, though it's been decades since one of Canadian Pacific Railway's passenger trains thundered down its tracks.

The golden age of train travel may be long gone, but a significant piece of Canada's railway legacy remains open for visitors here at the historic station in McAdam, a blink-and-you-miss-it hamlet near the Maine border.

Once a vital hub for passengers riding the rails, the chateau-style railway station and its attached five-star hotel are now being lovingly and painstakingly restored to their former glory.

In its heyday, some 16 trains — each one carrying as many as 300 passengers — came to a screeching halt at the grand station every day, sending plumes of coal dust into the air.

Soldiers, celebrities and politicians alike would stream through the doors of the imposing stone building with its pitched red roof destined for places like New York, Boston and Halifax.

At nighttime, the tracks were silent. But during the day, the station was a flurry of activity: men, women and children disembarking, others waiting for their connecting trains, and the occasional train-hopper caught by the railway's police.

"It was known to be a train always at the station," says Frank Carroll, treasurer of the McAdam Historical Restoration Commission, which has been working to revitalize the century-old station, now a provincial and federal historic site and designated heritage railway station.

"It was always bustling. There were so many people around the train station, coming and going."

The railway ordered construction of the station, standing two-1/2 storeys tall, at the turn of the 20th century. Renovations some 10 years later saw the addition of two wings for dining facilities and extra baggage storage. A man-made lake adjacent to the station was used for a water supply.

Like its other landmark railway stations, Canadian Pacific wanted the McAdam station constructed in the chateau style of architecture with a pointed spire and gabled dormers.

Today, visitors can tour the station, which also includes: a dingy, single-cell jail; a small mail room; refurbished waiting areas; a 50s-style cafeteria with a large, M-shaped counter; and a restored dining room that once hosted Marilyn Monroe. As the story goes, the Hollywood bombshell was bound for Miramichi, N.B., for a fishing trip with a few men when she stopped in McAdam.

Carroll, who is also the village's longtime mayor, says he recalls peering through the windows of the station's dining room as a young boy in the 1940s.

"That was always exciting to me because you saw all these — what I would interpret as — rich and famous people eating very elegant meals in this room that I was never privy to go into."

In the old ticket room, a Canadian Pacific conductor's hat hangs from a coat rack — ideal for photo ops. A telegraph machine sits atop a beat-up wooden desk.

In another refurbished room with dark wood floors and wall panelling is a photograph of William Van Horne, the former Canadian Pacific baron whose sprawling summer estate on Ministers Island, N.B., remains a tourist attraction nearly 97 years after his death.

On the left-hand side of the room is a door marked "hotel," which opens up to a staircase leading to the former 20-room inn. Numbered skeleton keys still hang near the staircase.

Upstairs, light filters in through the open doors on either side of a long, narrow hallway, illuminating the crackled green paint on the walls where the biggest restoration work has yet to be done.

Most rooms are empty, having long been abandoned by their guests. In one room, a small bed has been made up with linens featuring a Canadian Pacific Railway logo.

"These rooms were used for short periods of time by people that were connecting by trains and wanted to have their privacy, and have a chance to look good when they got on the next train," says Carroll.

"Those who travelled in those days wanted to travel well."

Carroll says the hotel and dining room shut down in the late 1950s when the popularity of train travel began to decline. Over the coming decades, Canadian Pacific Railway would pull out and federal Crown corporation VIA Rail would take over passenger service.

VIA's service to McAdam gradually dwindled before it was cancelled altogether in 1994, a couple of years before the commission stepped in to salvage the shuttered station.

Today, the station hosts conferences and dinners. It's also a museum and acts as the village's official visitors' centre during the summer months.

On Sundays, visitors looking for a taste of tradition can sample a slice of railroad pie — a throwback to the homemade cream- and fruit-filled pastry the station dished out to travellers during its golden years.

The hope is to eventually refurbish the hotel, welcome guests and recapture some of the magic from a bygone era. It will be an impressive feat costing an estimated $10 million, and involving tearing out walls and ceilings, upgrading electricity and plumbing.

Carroll concedes that day is a long way down the track, but he says the commission is very pleased with what has already been accomplished.

"We took the building for granted," says Carroll. "It was always here, it was just a station. We didn't see the value or the importance of it until it became empty.

- Ministers Island (Van Horne estate), Bar Road, St. Andrew's, N.B. Tours for adults are $15. There are discounted rates for students, seniors and families, and tours are free for children under the age of eight. Visitors are advised to check ahead for tour schedules. On the Web: www.ministersisland.net

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